Image and video forensics.

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One of the many reasons why people start using software like Amped FIVE is that it installs and runs on any modern Windows PC. There is no need to have huge amounts of hardware or specific configurations. A good, stable setup will work perfectly well.

Alan Osborn, from Fraud Intelligence, writes about the strong interest shown at the Forensics Europe Expo, by the Trieste, Italy-based company Amped Software, whose technology enables the analysis, enhancement, and authentication of images and video. Amped told FI how it’s very easy to alter an image and change the context and the meaning of that image, but hiding the artifacts that are left behind is much harder.

We love chatting with our users. We are always interested to hear about your views on image and video forensics, what your challenges are, and just simply getting to know you! If you are interested in sharing your story with us, let us know.

Sotiris Pavlides has been an Amped user for many years. His toolbox of digital forensic software includes all Amped Software products. We’ve met many times at industry events and at the numerous Amped software training courses he’s attended. He is an expert user who believes in continuous training in order to be able to keep up with the pace of advancements in digital forensics and technology.

Sotiris, tell us what you are doing at the Cyprus Police.

I am the Head of Photographic and Graphic Lab, of the Cyprus Police Criminalistic Services. I have a Master’s Degree in Communication. Our lab activities include Crime Scene Photography, Forensic Photography, Image and Video Analysis and Enhancement, CCTV Retrieval and Analysis, Facial or Items Comparison, Image Authentication, and etc.

Why did you choose to work in the field of multimedia forensics?

I have always been interested in image and video processing, especially creating funny TV productions where everything can be done. When I joined the police force and started to work in the Photographic and Graphic Lab (it was around the year 2000) I had received the first case about video authentication. This is what made me start thinking about the field of multimedia from another perspective. The new challenge for me was not to know how to create or manipulate a video but to know how to look for traces to identify if a video was authentic or not. Even though it was for analog video, I found the entire procedure, analysis and investigation very interesting.

You’ve been in this role for quite a long time. What do you think are the biggest challenges with multimedia digital evidence and investigating crimes?

I think the biggest challenge is when you have to deal with massive video data coming from different DVRs. We are also faced with problems when we collect or retrieve the footage from these systems. For sure, this is not an easy procedure. Moreover, the video compression (artifacts, loss of details), low frame rates, and in general, the low quality of footage we get from these systems is a challenge.Continue reading →

This is the second in a series of interviews with a number of our users that will share their story. If you are interested in being profiled, let us know. We would love to hear from you!

In this post, we feature Tomislav Prijanovič, from the Slovenian National Forensics Lab. We have known each other since 2006 where we happened to be in the same hotel for the ENFSI Digital Imaging Working Group meeting in Rome. He’s actually one of our first customers and, given the proximity between Trieste and Ljubljana – little more than one hour by car – we meet at least once per year to exchange ideas and share interesting cases. I must say that quite often he amazes me with his skills. Many times, he is able to get incredible results on license plates that at a first glance I deemed impossible.

Tomislav, tell us a bit about yourself. Whatis your background and your current role at the National Forensics Laboratory?

I am a forensic expert and court witness, working in the Physics Examination Department at the National Forensics Laboratory in Ljubljana, since 1990.

What made you decide to enter the forensics field?

After finishing technical school for electronics, I started working as a video technician. I basically worked on video documentation (video recording and editing) for police purposes, capturing and analyzing images from CCTV. At that time I also had the opportunity to do some work related to photography, like darkroom photography and working as a minilab operator. Due to the rapid development of digital technology (cameras, computer hardware, and software), we started to look for new technical solutions to make our work more effective (less time consuming and higher quality results). After digital cameras and digital video editing systems, getting forensic software was just a matter of time… and money. Continue reading →

You may remember the announcement of our partnership with Griffeye, some months ago. This partnership is especially interesting since we both work on images and videos, but in a different, yet complementary way. Griffeye focuses on finding the needle in a haystack, while Amped focuses on sharpening the needle and verifying it is actually a needle and not a stick.

In the latest release of Griffeye Analyze, the Amped FIVE plugin has been added to the Analyze Forensic Market, but in the near future we plan to also add apps for Amped Authenticate and Amped DVRConv. In this post, we will show you how to start with the integration and how the two software work together.

First of all, we assume that you have installed Amped FIVE (build 9010 or later) and Griffeye Analyze (17.1.0 or later) on the same machine.

In order to enable the integration, you need to click on the button “Analyze Forensic Market”.

I’ve had a few questions about our tool’s reporting feature, so I thought a blog post would help explain and illustrate the philosophy behind our report creation process. Here it goes.

To understand why we format our reports in the way that we do, you must first understand the legal and regulatory environment in which forensic analysis exists in much of the world. We don’t just create tools in a vacuum. We didn’t make a tool for another industry and repurpose it for forensic science. Amped FIVE is purpose built for the forensic analysis of video and images.

Thus, we’ll start our tour at the ASTM. ASTM’s E2825-12 is at the heart of why our reports are formatted as they are.

More specifically, in Section 4 of E2825-12 it notes the following:

4.2.1 – Processing steps are documented in a manner sufficient to permit a comparably trained person to understand the steps taken, the techniques used, and …

Amped FIVE’s reports are created to satisfy this guidance – every time, automatically.

I’m often here as I use this airport as a layover for many international flights when I can’t get one from my local airport in the UK.

This time though I have stayed here, in the Netherlands, delivering more Amped FIVE training.

It’s an easy airport to find a quiet spot to type!

I haven’t been able to blog as much as I would like over the past few months as I have been running many different training sessions and workshops. During these, I have noticed an emerging trend but never made the connection until this week.

To lay the foundations for this subject, let’s look at how a large law enforcement agency or a country made up with smaller agencies are commonly organised. I know there are many, many configurations but you should get the picture!!

We’ve just launched some pretty important additions to Amped Authenticate. Not only have we integrated it with CameraForensics, but we have also made some major improvements to the quantization tables in addition to many other internal improvements. Read below for the details.

CameraForensics Integration

The main purpose of Amped Authenticate is to verify if a picture is an original coming from a specific device or if it’s the result of manipulation using image editing software. One of the main tests to verify the file integrity is to acquire the camera that is assumed to be the one that has generated the photo (or at least the same model) and verify if the format is compatible with the file under analysis.

While this sounds easy in practice, many devices have so many different settings and because of this it can be challenging to recreate the same conditions. Furthermore, the camera is often not available.

What if we look on the web for pictures coming from a specific device? While we cannot, in general, guarantee the integrity of files downloaded from the web, we can triage them pretty easily and do a comparison with the image under analysis.

But how do you search for images on the web in an efficient manner? We have had “Search for Images from Same Camera Model…” in Authenticate for quite some time. It allows you to search on Google Images and Flickr, but the search is not always optimal, as it has to apply different workarounds to work efficiently in a forensic setting.

So, what if someone built a database of pictures on the web, optimized for investigative use, enabling you to instantly search for images coming from a specific device and with specific features such as resolution and JPEG quantization tables? Turns out the guys at CameraForensics did exactly this (and much more) and we partnered with them to provide a streamlined experience.

The Axon Accelerate Conference is on! Attend this two-day event to learn how to deploy the cutting-edge technologies available to you on the Axon platform, network with other law enforcement professionals, and help design the new devices and apps that let you focus on what really matters.

From June 20-21, 2017 you can attend numerous breakout session and choose the ones that are most relevant and important to you. Sessions cover topics on policy, products, security, Force Science, hardware, futures, media training, and so much more.

Join Jim Hoerricks, Director of Customer Support and Training, Amped Software Inc., for the INTRO TO AXON FORENSICS breakout session on WEDNESDAY, JUNE 21, 2017 from 11:00 AM-11:45 AM.

This session will illustrate the many workflows that are possible with the Axon Forensic Suite of products (powered by Amped Software), both as standalone tools and together with Evidence.com. The Axon Forensic Suite includes tools for the conversion of proprietary file types to standard formats (Axon Convert/Amped DVRConv), the restoration / clarification / analysis of images and video (Axon Five/ Amped FIVE), and the authentication
of images prior to their use in case work and court (Axon Detect/Amped Authenticate).

During a recent workshop on image authentication, I ran a few practical sessions. One concentrated on the changes that online services and social media platforms make to the images that we upload. It turned out to be an interesting experiment that has had some structured research over the past few years.

These are excellent starting resources when developing any internal Standard Operating Procedure: